I suspect that the "stick an ad in an item" approach won't last long. It's just too easy to filter. My guess is that, eventually, the norm will be to offer full-content feeds with ads embedded in the content, and excerpt-only feeds leading back to the site.

Fri 13 Jun 2003

InfoWorld Ads in RSS

As noted by Dave and Sam, InfoWorld announced today that they will introduce ads in their RSS feed. Before I comment, I should disclose that I write for InfoWorld and am on the masthead as a contributing editor. Believe it or not, I thought about...

Speaking for InfoWorld, our intent is not to disguise ads as content. Quite the contrary. If people don't download or purchase the product being advertised, then the ad is not good for either the users forced to look past it or the advertiser who lost money on it. Then we lose subscribers and don't get repeat ad business. Lose lose lose.

Among the people posting who are not offended by including ads in RSS, there seems to be a common thread on how to best implement them: embed the ad with the content. In our case, we will have to offer much more content with each post so that the value of the post isn't overshadowed by the intrusiveness of the ads embedded with the content. Any ideas on how to achieve that balance?

We will then have to measure where the tipping point is for people, at what point the ads ruin the experience for people and drive them to unsubscribe. From watching the logs closely this week, it seems that our current ad implementation with NewsGator is still far below that tipping point.

For me, the tipping point comes when I'm not given a reliable way of filtering out what I don't want to see. Why don't I like coming to the Infoworld website? I like the content, don't like the ads. That's why I really like RSS. It helps me wade through the marketing stuff and get right to the bits that are most important to me.

That said, there are ways around this. If you insert ads into feeds, clearly mark them as such using metadata tags as I describe here [http://www.snellspace.com/blog/archives/000497.html] or (if they are inline in the content) using CSS to distinguish the ad from the rest of the content. Picky users like myself who are willing to go in a write code to filter that stuff out would be able to and you wouldn't lose that handful of readers.

Jonathan Angel: IDG's InfoWorld yesterday became the first publisher to incorporate advertising into its RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed, an important step in the medium's commercial viability. And so it begins......

This is not new, nor is infoworld anywhere near the first in doing it. If I'm not mistaken the first time I'd seen an ad in an RSS feed was metafilter and this was well over a year ago. Now, there is the aspect of whether or not a 'publisher' has done it. Is this because they weren't smart enough? Or it because they're smart enough to know that it's an idea that will present unacceptable readership loss risks? I'm thinking it's the latter.

RSS advertising response

Lots of responses to our decision to put ads in our RSS feeds. We truly appreciate all the feedback, positive and negative. Some of the comments were fair and balanced and some of the comments and insinuations out there are...

Fri 20 Jun 2003

VentureBlog, Due Diligence, and Gizmodo

There are all kinds of ideas being thrown around about what makes a weblog a weblog, but the defining characteristic for me is "writing in one's authentic voice." That's why I enjoy reading Tim Oren's Due Diligence and August...

Fri 27 Jun 2003

Jonathan Angel: IDG's InfoWorld yesterday became the first publisher to incorporate advertising into its RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed, an important step in the medium's commercial viability. And so it begins......

Tue 12 Aug 2003

InfoWorld Ads in RSS

Sat 03 Jan 2004

InfoWorld Ads in RSS

As noted by Dave and Sam, InfoWorld announced today that they will introduce ads in their RSS feed. Before I comment, I should disclose that I write for InfoWorld and am on the masthead as a contributing editor. Believe it or not, I thought about...